Sony's PS3 to Get Officially Licensed 500GB External Hard Drive

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In order to accomodate the Torne digital TV recorder add-on announced for Japan, Sony's PS3 will be getting an officially licensed 500GB external hard drive next month.

PC hardware maker Buffalo announced today news of two external hard drives that have been granted official recognition from Sony, which apparently is the first time Sony has granted licensing to hard drive peripherals.

To quote: "Both drives have 500GB capacity and connect to the PS3 via an included USB 2.0 cable. The ¥14,800 Piano Black HD-AV500U2/SC sits horizontally and has a meter on its front showing remaining space.

The ¥11,800 Black HD-CL500U2/SC stands vertically but lacks the meter. They're both pre-formatted in a FAT32 format, allowing for immediate connection to the PS3.

In addition to being used as an external recording device for Torne, the drives can also be used for backup and restore of the PS3's internal hard drive, and for saving and playback of videos, pictures and music."

Or surely you could just add any Buffalo external hard drive - or ANY other make!
I have a 1TB Western Digital drive connected to my PS3!

Doubt there's anything particularly special about these drives. Unless the Torne digital TV recorder will only recognize specifically named/ID'd drives (which is possible). Can't believe they'd be so stupid as to restrict it though...

Having said all that - Buffalo do actually make some pretty nice drives, so maybe these will have DLNA servers and network connectivity built in too and allow simultaneous connection to the PS3/Torne AND network??

I would expect the official licensed product to support single file bigger than 4gb. This would be very handy when watching x.264 HD video on PS3. But this is pricy for a 500gb external HDD. One is paying extra $$$ for the so-called officially licensed product. In my opinion, not worth the money at all.

I was excited right up until I read that. I thought for a minute this meant they'd finally be adding NTFS/exFAT/EXT2 or some other format that allows large files.

i was excited until i read that they were officially licensed. that usually means that you would pay more for the same item then you would if it was not licensed. just look at what people have to pay for the "licensed"/proprietary xbox360 hdds.

sony would be shooting themselves in the foot to make users buy a licensed hdd for use with the new video recorder. i was excited when the playtv and torne were announced/released, however if i have to buy a particular hdd add-on to make the best use of the recorder i will not be buying the recorder. if they even release it here in the states.

I would expect the official licensed product to support single file bigger than 4gb. This would be very handy when watching x.264 HD video on PS3. But this is pricy for a 500gb external HDD. One is paying extra $$$ for the so-called officially licensed product. In my opinion, not worth the money at all.

Is the ext supported only in Linux mode ? I have some HD recordings in my ps3 and it's annoying I can not store them to my 1TB USB drive because of Fat32 filesize limitation (5GB & 9,5 GB files).